Explanation of Special Homework Skills by Ron Kurtus - Tricks for Good Grades: Strategies to Succeed in School. Also refer to speed reading, comprehension, understanding, memory, highlighting, outlining, Ron Kurtus, School for Champions. Copyright © Restrictions

Special Homework Skills

by Ron Kurtus (revised 23 December 2008)

Homework usually consists of reading material in your textbook and doing written assignments. Sometimes you must do outside research on a subject.

You want to be able to read the material rapidly, understand what you read and remember important points. Then you must answer questions, solve problems or write out reports. You want to go through each area quickly and efficiently. You want to improve your skills to increase your effectiveness in these areas.

Questions you may have include:

• How can I read faster?
• How can I understand what I read?
• How do I improve my memory?

This lesson will answer those questions.

Read faster

It is worthwhile to look into ways to increase your reading speed. Why plod along, when you can go through your homework, reading twice at fast?

Methods to increase your reading speed include skim reading before you do serious reading and clumping words together instead of reading one word at a time. At the very least, simply concentrating on reading faster will help you improve your speed and comprehension.

(Check out the lesson on Reading Faster for detailed tips and methods.)

Understand what you read

Most textbook material consists of important points followed by details and examples. If the material is very difficult to read, you may have to read it over several times.

Use highlighter

Some students use a highlighter to mark what they feel are important points or sentences in the book. I never liked to do that, in case I marked the wrong sentence. Also, it might make it difficult to sell the book at a later time.

Write important points

I feel that writing out the important points works better, because you remember what you write, and you can add other comments or thoughts. Also, writing can help the understanding process.

Experiment with what method works the best for you.

Improve your memory

People with what they call "photographic memories" are supposed to be able to remember everything they see or read. A good memory would make things a lot easier when it comes time to answer questions in class or when taking a test.

There are methods and tricks to improve your memory. One of them is to be observant and notice things around you. Another good technique is to make associations with familiar things you can visualize.

Writing down key points helps the memory for some students. Other students find that verbalizing the material or explaining it to friends ingrain the material into the memory.

Again, you can try different methods to find what work best for you.

Summary

Since homework usually consists of reading material in your textbook and doing written assignments, you want to be able to read the material rapidly, understand what you read and remember important points. You want to improve your skills to increase your effectiveness in these areas.